I have a question. If a recipe calls for approximately "10-15% of the grain bill," how exactly do you figure that when extract is involved. The recipe will include a mini-mash of about 4 pounds of grain, the rest will be liquid extract. I get very different numbers when calculating the % of ingredients used and the % of what I'd actually extract.

I know this probably sounds very confusing because I'm not explaining it well, but if anyone can make some sense out of it and help me out, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

I believe that it is calculated from the total batch size. 10 % of your bill will be the specialty that you are adding. So if your recipe calls for 10 % adjunct, and it uses 4 pounds pale malt, and 5 pounds of extract and 1 pound of adjunct, this one percent will be 10% of the total 10 pounds.

This will guide you through the entire process and some of the things you should consider along the way. Give it a read, and let us know if it helped. If not, then post your recipe and we'll help you figure it out.